voice of bainbridge

Planning Commission Meeting, June 13 2019 . 7 to 10 PM

Don't forget the GoFundMe effort!

Planning Commission Regular Meeting
June 13, 2019  7:00 - 10:00 PM

AGENDA

 

7:00 PM      CALL TO ORDER

                   Call to Order, Agenda Review, Conflict Disclosure

7:05 PM      PUBLIC COMMENT

                   Accept public comment on off agenda items.

 

7:10  PM     WINSLOW HOTEL (PLN50880 SPR)

                   Review and Recommendation

7:10 – 7:40 PM     Staff Presentation

7:40 – 8:20 PM     Applicant Presentation

8:20 – 9:10 PM     Planning Commission Review

9:10 – 9:50 PM     Public Comment

9:50 – 9:55 PM     Planning Commission Recommendation

9:55 PM      NEW/OLD BUSINESS

10:00 PM    ADJOURN

 

 

Please note doors will open at 6:30 PM.

City Council Study Session June 4, video

The Winslow Hotel project was presented by the PCD staff to the Council Members before a very small audience but the Council members were aware of the standing room only attendance at the design hearing and mentioned several times they had received emails and were concerned about the folks who could watch the video about this project. If you want to watch go here and start at 1 hour 22 ( ends at 1 hour 51). Obviously the Council members have heard from their constituents but they reiterated they were not part of the process according to the present rules. A few questions were asked about the noise, the traffic, the jobs eventually created, but nothing very precise or detailed. The next key meeting and that time the public will be allowed to ask questions is June 13. In the meantime if you feel concerned you can still email the city planning department and the Council members, ask the local media to report, ask BCB to organize one or several podcasts, (Bainbridge Community Broadcasting) get in touch with VOB at voiceofbainbridge at gmail.com if you are willing to record a podcast with us, or record one yourself as now any Iphone will do the job.

LISTEN(1.24 minutes)
I am a bit rusty and recorded this in a rush. Give it a try.

Looking at the comments about the Winslow Hotel project

As there are many comments recorded (scroll down the file) all in pdf format that requires downloading, it will take a while to read them all (146+?). I have started posting a few of them on Voice of Bainbridge. The ones in support (so far I found  only two) can be selected by clicking on the 'a hotel W positive comment' category on the left of the screen. For the many more comments "concerned/against" click on the 'a hotel Winslow concerned comment' category. Thank you to Peter Denis for his February 17 knowledgeable contribution. Will he be heard?

"New hotel will bring change to Winslow" or "dramatically change Winslow"? Opinion letter by Virginia Rice

"New hotel will bring change to Winslow" is the headline chosen by the Bainbridge Review that published Virginia Rice's letter as an opinion on May 7. That's almost one month ago from this post of June 6. Gone missing from the headline is the term "dramatically" that Virginia used in her first sentence. Later she writes "the plans and project updates are available on the city website": my question is how easily accessible are they if you don't have the magic url ? How many "concerned", essentially negative or very negative comments from citizens had already been recorded but buried in the city website (see below the screenshot of 90 of them)? How did the two main traditional local media report about this significant democratic (ie from the people) outcry about/against a project? I could not see any (yet). Nor any concern expressed publicly by our elected officials (yet) although the protest from the demos has been piling up for a while 'on the city website". How many as of today? Who read them?

There had been one hour mandatory "public participation" meeting that took place on November 26, 2018. What happened? Then what? What's next?

Dear City, comment by Victoria Josslin - In memoriam

Our dear friend Victoria died on May 12, a few days after sending this email to city hall.

From: Victoria Josslin
Sent: Wednesday, May 8, 2019 2:32 PM 
To: PCD Subject: Hotel Complex 
Dear City,   I am writing, as many others are, to ask the City of Bainbridge Island to deny the application for an 87‐room hotel complex on Winslow Way.

I know that you'll get lots of mail about the traffic, noise, and smells that will inevitably be  part of that development, and I agree with those letters.   I want to raise the issue of scale.

Bainbridge Island is a small town. Most ‐ if not all ‐ of us who live here treasure that  part of our life. The sheer size ‐ 132 parking places? ‐ of this project will change the experience of life on the Island. 

While that concern, important as it is, may sound vague, surely concerns about the scale of traffic, waste, sewers, and  calls upon City services are measurable.   Finally, I encourage you to look at the business plan, if possible. What will happen if this project, once built, turns out to be impractical? Rather than an outsized eyesore, will we be left with an abandoned outsize eyesore?  Thank you for considering these points.  

Victoria Josslin 

Hotel Winslow Project Info on City Hall website and another project still pending in Poulsbo

Here is the url to see the file on the Hearing Examiner page for the 253 Winslow Way W parcel. I first decided to look for articles about the project and the developer.

From Googling the name of the owner of the parcel (Michael Burns) + Bainbridge Island I found this August 30, 2017 article by Nick Twietmeyer in the Bainbridge Review that explains his rationale for building a then 60-room luxury hotel downtown. Tad Sooter mentioned the project in the June 28 issue of the Kitsap Sun but without input from the owner or the architect. In June 2014, the Kitsap Sun informs us that Michael bought the former city hall in Poulsbo to build a hotel. This project morphed into a building with 58 studios and one bedroom units according to the Kitsap Sun in April 2016. One year later the project Old City Hall Apartments, is up for public comments with 74 units and 95 off-street parking spaces. I have not found any article about the completed building. I went to Poulsbo to have a look: the project is not finalized yet, there is only an empty lot. See pictures below at the bottom of this post.

City Hall told me it was now going to be an 80 one bedroom units, with 6 two bedrooms units, including at least 106 off street (underground) parking spots. There are still some technical points to be solved (about sight distance and engineering issues). The deadline for completing the process is coming soon. Michael Burns is also mentioned in the sales of several properties on Bainbridge and Poulsbo reported in May 2016 for 17.5 million and 5.93 million by Tad Sooter for the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal.

Public comments about the hotel

You can find the public comments sent to the planning department by scrolling down the document. As of this morning I counted 146 comments and apparently some people wrote several times. Unfortunately, to access each comment you have to download a pdf format :( so there is not a quick way to read one after the next or to aggregate them into one document, except by copy/pasting 146 files.

A tedious task but that would be worth doing to have a global sense of the arguments put forward. Many express probably the same concerns about the size (excessive), the negative impact on traffic, quietness, general 'feel' of the neighborhood? "Below is one comment I picked.

Design Board hearing about the Hotel Winslow project on Monday June 3rd

The city staff had never seen such a crowd for a design board hearing on this monday June 3rd at around 4pm. They said they were happy to have such an attendance of almost 100 people. That sounded like a strange reaction to me as when asked how many felt positive about the project, only a few hands were raised. As the public could not ask any questions (although a few were asked anyway) I can only imagine the level of frustration at the lack of communication but maybe only it's only me?

In any case people were able to listen to architect Jim Cutler who sounded a bit irritated to have to explain once more his work and the repeated efforts his team made to accommodate the never ceasing complaints of the neighbors and community at large. More meetings are planned although I wonder if they are going to be much more productive. I'll try to have the various parties explain themselves via interviews if I am able to secure them.

Apparently the city council wants to hear what's going on at today's meeting but no questions or comments will be taken from the public.

The planning commission meeting where the public will be allowed to talk is on June 13 at 7pm (if nothing changes).

 pcd@bainbridgewa.gov is where you can email your comments to the planning department for the council members council@bainbridgewa.gov.

I was surprised to find so little information available on line but maybe I did not look hard enough.